Thursday

Can't You See It's We Who Own the Night?

01. What is this? I mean, wtf is this?!

02. Despite its (ontological?) ambiguity, one thing is not at all ambiguous: never before has a former teenpop queen transitioned into outright salaciousness more abruptly or stunningly. In fact, "transition" is the wrong word. From, like, daisy dukes in the "Party in the USA" video to this is like 0-90 in two seconds on a street with a 35 mph speed limit. It's insane. If Britney is the inevitable poster-child for this sort of trajectory, her image evolution has actually been far more gradual--and she's never put out anything quite so prurient as this.

03. This happened just five years ago. Miley, 2013: "To my homegirls here with the big butts / shaking it like we at a strip club..." Rihanna, Miley's apparent role model, has, I suppose, upped the ante in this respect. "Sex in the air / I don't care, I like the smell of it" is now a lyric that one can hear on one's public broadcast medium of choice. Subtlety is done, put a fork in it.

04. By contrast, Selena G.'s "mature" turn suggests some interest in being an old-fashioned pop star, more glamorous than hip. As hooks go these days, "If you want it, come and get it" is comparatively nuanced!

05. There's so much going on, and I'm not sure whether it reminds me more of Fiona Apple's "Criminal" video or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Y Control" clip.

06. Is this the end of hipster culture, or the moment when hipster culture swallowed youth culture in its entirety, one big fucking gulp, like the whale in Pinocchio--the American Apparelization of all things? Harmony Korine may be at least partly responsible for this rapid development, but scenes like the one in Spring Breakers where the characters sing "Baby One More Time" will soon no longer be possible if the "We Can't Stop" video is an accurate indication of the direction we're headed: the ironic disconnect between the dream life of pop and the lives lived by listeners will have been (at least ostensibly) bridged.

07. This track will definitely be featured prominently on the next season of Girls.